Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital city of Denmark.

It sits right beside the sea. Boats float in its canals. Red roofs and tall green towers fill the sky.

Copenhagen is the capital and biggest city of Denmark, a country in northern Europe. The city is built on two islands, Zealand and Amager, where a narrow strip of sea called the Øresund (The Sound) separates Denmark from Sweden.

Its Danish name, København, means "Merchants' Harbor," and trading ships have sailed in and out for more than 800 years. About 673,000 people lived in the city in 2026. From the tower of Christiansborg Palace you can look out over red roofs, green copper spires and canals.

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, spread across the islands of Zealand (Sjælland) and Amager at the southern end of The Sound (Øresund), the strait between Denmark and Sweden. Its Danish name, København, means "Merchants' Harbor," a reminder that the town grew rich on the Baltic herring trade.

Statistics Denmark counted 672,666 people in the municipality in 2026; Britannica's 2022 estimate put the wider urban area at 1,345,562. Postwar growth followed the "Five Finger Plan," which ran transport links out along corridors and kept green recreation areas within reach of neighborhoods. By 2000 the economy, once heavily industrial, was dominated by services, trade, finance and education.

Tivoli is a very old fun park in the middle of the city.

It has rides, gardens and twinkling lights. By the water sits a small statue of a mermaid. She comes from a fairy tale.

Tivoli Gardens opened its gates on August 15, 1843. It still has a wooden roller coaster from 1914, one of the oldest in the world still running, and a lake made from part of the old city moat.

Out by the harbor, at Langelinie Pier, sits The Little Mermaid, a bronze statue from 1913 based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen. It has become a symbol of Denmark. Christiansborg Palace, on a little island in the center, is where Denmark's Parliament meets, and Rosenborg Castle, more than 400 years old, is now a museum of the royal family.

Christiansborg Palace occupies Slotsholmen ("Castle Islet"), on the site of the castle Bishop Absalon founded in 1167; since 1928 it has housed Parliament, the Supreme Court and the Foreign Office. Nearby are the Royal Library and its waterfront extension of steel and glass, the Black Diamond (1999). The building boom that began in the late 16th century produced the Børsen (Exchange), Holmens Church, Trinitatis Church with its Round Tower, and Rosenborg Castle, now the museum of the royal family.

Amalienborg palace, the University of Copenhagen (1479), the 17th-century citadel and the Church of Our Saviour in Christianshavn complete the historic core. Tivoli, founded by Georg Carstensen and opened in 1843, covers 8.3 hectares; its lake was created in 1887 from the former moat, and its Pantomime Theatre (1874) is its oldest standing building. Edvard Eriksen's Little Mermaid (1913) at Langelinie is a national symbol.

Families in Copenhagen visit parks, gardens and a zoo.

They ride the old roller coaster at Tivoli. They look at stars at a planetarium. Many like to read Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote fairy tales such as The Little Mermaid, lived and worked in Copenhagen in the 1800s, and the city still celebrates him. Families visit the Tivoli Gardens, the zoo in Frederiksberg Park, the botanical gardens and the Tycho Brahe Planetarium, named after a famous Danish astronomer.

The University of Copenhagen has taught students since 1479. Today most people in the city work in services, trade, finance and education. The Royal Theatre, built in 1874, stands on Kongens Nytorv, the King's New Square.

The city's heart is Rådhuspladsen (Town Hall Square), from which an old, crooked shopping street leads to Kongens Nytorv, laid out in the 17th century with the Royal Theatre (1874), the Thott Palace and Charlottenborg, now the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek holds a fine collection of traditional and modern art.

Besides the University of Copenhagen (1479), higher education includes the Technical University of Denmark (1829) and the Royal Danish Academy of Music (1867). The botanical gardens (1874) have an observatory with a statue of Tycho Brahe, and the Tycho Brahe Planetarium opened in 1989. In Christianshavn, Freetown Christiania, a community set up in 1971 in abandoned military buildings, has become one of the city's largest tourist attractions.